A Super Easy and Effective Upper Body Warm Up You Don’t Know

We all know by now that warming up properly before an intense workout has many benefits. Whether we are trying to increase blood circulation, body temperature, increase joint ROM, activating or “waking up” muscles and the nervous system etc., etc.

There are tons of videos on youtube and even specific programs sold just on the topic of How To Warm Up Properly. So today’s blog post and video is not about the best, the newest and the “only way” to warm up it is about

1.) looking at a few considerations that you might not have thought about when designing a pre workout warm up routine

2.) learning, perhaps, a few new exercise techniques using these the new principles.

Today’s upper body warm up will be centered on the shoulders, the core of the upper body. The exercises chosen primarily work the scapular stabilizers.

Are you familiar or aware that there are 4 types of ROM (Range of Motion) that muscles can contract in? That sounds a little confusing doesn’t it? Now I am sure you have heard of the 3 different types of muscle contractions: concentric, eccentric and isometric but today we are going to talk about the 4 different ranges of motion these muscle contractions can take place in but with specific emphasis on one type of range in today’s post.

We are all familiar with at least one of these ROM, full range of motion. Today we will talk about internal range of motion. Achieving good postural alignment by addressing musculoskeletal/neuro-physiological imbalances is something we should all be striving for. We have all see this photo:

Understanding the proper range of motion to work in is crucial when you want to modify the resting length of a muscle or position of a joint. Let’s look at an example of internal range for elbow flexion during the biceps curl which is from 90 degrees to approx 160 degrees:

When trying to correct posture against all those hours sitting in front of a computer being a desk jockey too much pressing vs. pulling, poor technique in the gym, lack of stretching the lats, pec minor, sub scap, teres major, etc. using internal range will be a wise choice to help counter balance all the reasons why we have poor thoracic, shoulder girdle and forward head posture. Working the rhomboids major, minor and lower trapezius in the internal range will bring a lot of stability to the upper limb when performing dynamic movements and also help improve the posture by bringing the shoulders back and downward.

So check out the video below, give the exercises a try during your next warm up and feel free to post a comment below.

Hey Paul. Love the blog. Its about time someone in the field of personal training and sports performance started recognizing the relationship between good posture and good performance (including injury prevention). I watch a lot of sports and sometimes I want to throw things at the TV watching some of the horrible postures of these athletes. Tim Duncan, Amare Stoudemire, Brian Urlacher anyone? No wonder these guys get back pain. Keep up the good work.